


Rough Water

by sundrenched



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Waterbending & Waterbenders, with some liberties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 18:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30109914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundrenched/pseuds/sundrenched
Summary: The kind of water that Hama has always loved is rough.
Relationships: Hama & Katara (Avatar)
Kudos: 5
Collections: Unofficial FFA Unanon Collection





	Rough Water

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/480818.html?thread=2887159090#cmt2887159090) for the prompt: 100 words of rough water.

The kind of water that Hama has always loved--has worshipped, felt sing and thrum like the blood in her veins long before she became the Puppetmaster--is rough. Water that takes life instead of giving. Water that destroys instead of nourishing. Water that is not afraid to _feel_. Anger. Hatred. Honesty. 

From Kanna's tales of childhood--sometimes wistful, sometimes stoic, confessed only under the full moon that makes waterbenders' emotions swell and throb like tides--Hama knew that in the North, they gave water shape. It was stripped of freedom, of power; used as a tool to construct lavish palaces or ornate defenses--made rigid instead of vast. And their women healed with water as though _that_ were the element's finest offering. 

_Had they never seen rough water--fast and choppy, graceful even in gracelessness--sink ships of their own Warriors' wisest men? Did they really think that water could be tamed--was something to_ be _tamed? As if the whole raging sea could ever be contained!_

Laughable. It was laughable! Water was a wild, wild thing. The sea could be as gentle as it was vicious, but in both ways, deeply unforgiving. 

But Hama's _own_ people, the people of the Southern Water Tribe, had for centuries looked up to their sister tribe like all waterbenders look up to the moon... And by the time she was their last bender standing, Hama had long learned to pretend as though her love for rough water had quelled. (It never had.)

When she is old--worn down, can feel death slowly creeping into her bones like silent fissures in ice floes--Hama meets a girl like rough water. Katara is her name, and Hama says it to herself over and over again as if it's a spell. She has come from the Northern Water Tribe after shaking its foundations like a tsunami, and she is not afraid to _feel_. Anger. Hatred. Honesty.

Katara flows _with_ water instead of controlling it, Hama is sure--even if she has yet to see her bend, her veins sing and thrum to the familiar song of rough water when she stares into the girl's bottomless eyes.

* * *

Before, Katara is gentle. After, she is vicious. As she leaves without a second glance, she is unforgiving. The girl curses Hama with a rage that never should be tamed, and Hama, for the first time since she lost everything, allows herself to weep. (A desperate wish that a desperate girl begged of the churning seas long ago was answered.)

There is another waterbender like her: one who ebbs and flows to the rhythm of the vast oceans. Uncontainable.


End file.
